This summer 52-year-old Daniel Wunsch, a teacher at Louis-Lepoix school in the picturesque German spa town of Baden-Baden, received a call to help a refugee boy in his class who had tried to kill himself. Ahmed*, a hard-working young man with dreams of becoming a nurse, had suffered from insomnia for weeks and there was no one other than the school to contact.
Wunsch took the teenager to hospital and gave him a room in his house to help him recover. “He hadn’t slept in a long time,” Wunsch says. “He was afraid and thought the police would take him away. He’s a friendly boy who gets through his homework and works well in a team, but when he can’t sleep he struggles to concentrate in class, so I worry about him.”
This academic term the school has taken in 60 refugee children, many of whom, like Ahmed, fled from places such as Syria, Afghanistan and Africa. When they arrive, the refugees attend welcome classes, learning German and practical tasks like how to get a tram or buy food in the supermarket. After a year, students combine classes in school with vocational training – for Ahmed this means working with nurses at the local hospital.
Germany is expected to take in 1.5 million asylum seekers this year, according to estimates. The Standing Conference, the official body of German education ministers, predicts there will be at least 325,000 extra school students across the country as a result.
But the transition from areas of conflict to Germany is not straightforward. “My pupils are kind and intelligent,” says Wunsch, “but many of them are alone as their parents have died. Some are ill. Too many live with lots of people in one shared room. They are afraid so they can’t sleep and then they struggle to learn.”
Many students also suffer from mental health problems. One in five refugee children in Germany have post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and half have suffered trauma, according to German psychotherapists. “Some pupils are so traumatised that they start to drift off and can’t concentrate on what I’m saying,” says Nana Keck, who teaches refugee children at Gutenbergschule in Karlsruhe. “Their faces glaze over and I can see that they’re not with me.”
When this happens, Keck lets them take a walk or look out of the window. She doesn’t have the resources or the psychological training to do anything more. She says one student in her class was so traumatised that he sat with his rucksack on the whole time, refusing to take out his pen and paper. “He was on edge and ready to take off at any moment,” Keck says. “After a few hours he walked out. I shouted to him but he didn’t answer. So I followed him down the hall, but in the end I couldn’t leave the others so I let him go.”
The situation isn’t helped when children have to wait up to six months in reception centres upon arrival in Germany. There is limited access to education or meaningful activities and children are vulnerable to violence and abuse, says Rudi Tarneden, press officer at Unicef Germany. “I visited one in Dusseldorf which was a big hall, set up for 1,000 people. The atmosphere was tense.
“Kids are often overlooked. I saw some trying to learn German with an old textbook, but the environment isn’t easy for them. I heard about one man drawing a knife on a boy – and this isn’t uncommon.” Time wasted in these centres is a lost opportunity and can exacerbate or create mental health problems, he warns, making it even harder for schools.
The Gewerkschaft Erziehung und Wissenschaft (GEW) teaching union has predicted the country will need at least 25,000 more teaching staff to cater for new arrivals – plus more psychiatrists, translators and social workers.
“The problem is finding the room to teach. We need more teachers and more schools,” says Andreas Wittmann, who teaches at Erich Kästner school in Bochum.
Overstretched teachers are currently working long hours to integrate young refugees into German society. “It’s hard work,” says Keck. “Every week is a new scenario. Some of my children don’t know any written language. For them it’s very basic and it’s slow progress.” It is essential to educate and integrate refugees, says Tarneden. “These children have a right to go to school here, and after the terrible events in Paris it’s important to the avoid mistake of not integrating young people,” he says. “Education isn’t just about learning, it’s about arriving. Young people have less difficulty learning a new language so this is an important time for them. How we handle this will have a huge impact on Germany. These children are the future and their lives will be here.”Unicef is calling for better conditions in reception centres and political and financial support for teachers to support integration. The German government has pledged to increase funding to the country’s 16 regional states to €4bn (£2.8bn) – double the current amount. But Germany may need €21bn (£14.7bn) this year alone to house, feed and educate refugees, according to latest predictions from the Munich-based Ifo institute.
Reports of growing right-wing radicalism and a backlash against Germany’s open-door policy make the situation tense. The anti-Islam Pegida movement recently held its biggest rally in months, and support for German chancellor Angela Merkel has dropped over her handling of the crisis. Regardless, we must give teachers the political help they need, says Tarneden. “We are good at fostering high expectations, but not good at providing support,” he says.
Ahmed is now back in school with medication to help him sleep. It will be a long journey for him to become a nurse, but his teachers say he is back on track. Wunsch is determined that Germany must help more young people like him. “This is the situation now and we must learn from it and learn to change things,” he says. “Refugees are humans with problems and young people who need help. No teacher goes away and lets them suffer.”
*Name has been changed
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